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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Rome (CNN) - Members of the powerful Gambino and Bonanno
crime families were among 24 people arrested Tuesday in New York and several
cities in Italy in a major anti-mafia raid, authorities said.

The FBI and Italian police carried out the raid as part of
operation "New Bridge," which targeted more than 40 people for
international drug trafficking and organized crime in connection with the
'Ndrangheta mafia, officials added.

The FBI arrested seven people in New York in a coordinated
raid, he added, including members of the Gambino and Bonanno families.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New
York named the seven suspects as 'Ndrangheta member Raffaele Valente, also
known as "Lello," Gambino associate Franco Lupoi, Bonanno associate
Charles Centaro, also known as "Charlie Pepsi," Dominic Ali,
Alexander Chan, Christos Fasarakis, and Jose Alfredo Garcia, also known as
"Freddy."

The defendants are charged with drug trafficking, money
laundering and firearms offenses, "based, in part, on their participation
in a transnational heroin and cocaine trafficking conspiracy involving the
'Ndrangheta, one of Italy's most powerful organized crime syndicates," it
said.

Investigators speaking at the news conference in Rome said
the money found in the raids amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The operations in Italy were carried out in the southern
region of Calabria, home of the 'Ndrangheta syndicate, and in the cities of
Naples, Caserta, Torino, Benevento and Catanzaro.

The Italian mafia family
involved in the alliance, or "bridge," with the Gambino family, is
called Ursino Ionica.

Tuesday's operation was the first ever jointly run by U.S.
and Italian police targeting the ties between the two countries' 'Ndrangheta
mafia families, investigators said.

Anti-mafia prosecutors in Calabria have been carrying out an
investigation over the past two years, and Italian police compiled a 2,000-page
report detailing what was learned, including information from phone wiretaps.

U.S. Attorney: 'Lasting blow'

The Italian national anti-mafia body, which coordinated the
investigation and operation, alleges that the 'Ndrangheta is behind a ring of
drug trafficking between South and Central America, Canada, the United States
and Italy.

U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said the operation had
"dealt a lasting blow" to the 'Ndrangheta's efforts to gain a
foothold in New York.

"The 'Ndrangheta is an exceptionally dangerous,
sophisticated and insidious criminal organization, with tentacles stretching
from Italy to countries around the world," she said.

"The defendant Lupoi sought to use his connections with
both 'Ndrangheta and the Gambino crime family to extend his own criminal reach
literally around the globe."

Together, the accused sought to move cocaine and heroin into
the United States under the guise of legitimate shipping operations, with the
help of a corrupt official at the port of Gioia Tauro, in Calabria, the U.S.

Attorney's Office said.

Lupoi, from Brooklyn, has lived in Calabria and used his
connections with both the Gambino organized crime family and the 'Ndrangheta to
pursue international criminal activity, it said.

Among those arrested in Italy are his father-in-law, Antonio
Simonetta, and his cousin, Francesco Ursino, it said.

During two joint FBI-Italian operations in Italy, Lupoi and
Ursino sold more than 1.3 kilograms of heroin to an FBI undercover agent for
what they believed was eventual distribution in the United States, the U.S.Attorney's Office said.

In New York, Lupoi, Chan and Garcia sold the undercover
agent more than a kilogram of heroin, it added.

Cocaine found in canned fruit shipment

Lupoi, aged 44, is also accused of plotting to smuggle 500
kilograms of cocaine, concealed in frozen food, in shipping containers from
Guyana, in South America, to Calabria, thanks to connections with Mexican drug
cartels operating in Guyana.

Italian court documents show the conspiracy slowed after
shipping containers from a Guyanese shipping company were seized in Malaysia
and found to contain more than $7 million in cocaine hidden in cans labeled as
containing coconut milk and pineapple, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Investigators said at the news conference that the
Mexico-Calabria connection was established in New York.

Law enforcement officials are still trying to establish how
the drug traveled from Mexico to Guyana but said that some of the suspects took
trips to Latin America following their New York meetings.

The illegal traffic of drugs between the United States and
Italy stopped by police could have earned the mafia millions of euros,
authorities said, though they declined to give an exact figure.

Raffaele Grassi, head of the Criminal Unit of the Italian
State Police, told reporters that the operation demonstrated that the
"'Ndrangheta is one of the strongest organizations in the world in illegal
drug trade."

He cited its sophisticated network of contacts and its
ability to adapt and find new markets, including "expanding beyond Italian
borders."

Historic links

Grassi said that historically, the Gambino family had had
ties with the Sicilian Mafia, Cosa Nostra. But their involvement in the illegal
traffic of heroin, known as the "Pizza Connection," was dismantled or
severely curtailed in the 1980s, he said, and they are now trading mainly
cocaine.

The latest operation, according to Grassi and FBI officials,
shows that the mafia families of the "new continent" are still
seeking and relying on "old country" connections -- which is why
investigators dubbed the operation "New Bridge."

According to Grassi, the Italian-American mafia families
"need this new bridge to connect and support the traffic of cocaine."

While the existence of a connection between the Calabrian mafia
and U.S. mafia families has been well known, Tuesday's operation shows its
great strength and reach, investigators said.

One of the more alarming discoveries to emerge from the
operation was evidence that 'Ndrangheta has also reached out to the Far East in
the heroin trade, another investigator said.